Two Babbar Khalsa militants held in Punjab

Punjab police today claimed to have arrested two militants of the banned Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) from a village in the state's Gurdaspur district.

Punjab police on Sunday claimed to have arrested two militants of the banned Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) from a village in the state's Gurdaspur district.

According to police, the arrested militants were identified as Balwinder Singh alias Binda and Manjinder Singh aka Manna. A pistol and several live cartridges were recovered from their possession.

“On a tip-off, we arrested Balwinder and Manjinder from a petrol pump at Khanowal village near Batala town where they had come on a motorcycle on Saturday night. Another BKI militant Harwant Singh, who was arrested around three months ago, told us about their whereabouts,” a police officer said.

“They were also carrying a water cooler on the motorcycle in which they had kept a pistol and several live cartridges.”

Batala town is in Gurdaspur district, over 250 km from Chandigarh. Both the arrested militants are residents of Bijliwal village in the same district.

On Wednesday night, five smugglers were arrested and six kg of RDX and 20 detonators, timer-devices and two kg heroin recovered from their possession from a border village in Amritsar district.

This year, police have arrested nearly a dozen terrorists belonging to different banned groups.